fracked off chester

[westlondoncarparts]

Dear Olivia,

GCHQ and MI5 and Langley will all have been tracking my phone calls and e-mails anyway so not likely to be any more surveillance if my posting ends up with the MPs!

I am not surprised about your MP following the party line. If you remember when Parliament was due to vote on the Maastricht Treaty which paved the way for what is now the enlarged European Union, a lot of Tory MPs were dead against the Treaty. To bring his Eurosceptics into line, John Major said that he would treat the Maastricht vote as a vote of confidence in his Government and that his Government would fall if his MPs voted against Maastricht. To put party before country over such an important matter as the development of what is now the European Union was the ultimate act of political self interest and the ultimate act of trampling over democratic process. So not surprised if Tory MPs will not take a stand over fracking in the present day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_v..._of_John_Major

[sidthelamp]

it is interesting that the times i have wrote to my pm/am about what ever, the standard response is we will be following the government or party line,

so we vote these people in, they follow and vote party line, even if people who write to them disagree and ask for there opinion /views to b heard, we basically have no voice through are elected mp/am , thats not representative to my way of thinking.

[PetBazaar]

Under the structures of devolution that we have in the UK, fracking is not being allowed to go ahead in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland until it can be proven that it is environmentally safe to do so.

It is only in England where the Westminster Government is trying to drive fracking forward with disregard for local opinion.

You would have thought that the Westminster Government would take into account what the devolved administrations are saying about fracking. Instead we appear to be on the verge of totalitarianism where local democracy is OK as long as it agrees with what the Westminster Government wants but can be overridden if it does not give the support that Westminster wants. The legal changes to drilling without permission under people’s land feel a bit like the thin end of a somewhat thick wedge.

http://www.u.tv/News/2015/09/28/Nort...ing-zone-45851

A snippet below from an interesting recent poll on various energy sources from a Scottish perspective, given the above comment about it only being in England were local opinion is disregarded.

OFFSHORE FRACKING
Should be used more: 22%
About the same as now: 17%
Should be used less: 13%
Should be banned: 29%
Don’t know: 13%

ONSHORE FRACKING
Should be used more: 15%
About the same as now: 15%
Should be used less: 11%
Should be banned: 40%
Don’t know: 20%

In both cases more people want fracking (albeit marginally with onshore), than want to see it banned. Perhaps local opinion is being disregarded in the devolved parliaments too.

[olivia8143]

But the choice "About the same as now" is zero so, in fact, LESS people want fracking not more according to your single poll (of how many people?)

[westlondoncarparts]

The official situation in Scotland is that the current Scottish Government is neither for nor against fracking but has introduced a moratorium on fracking operations (but not test drilling) so that the environmental risks associated with fracking can be assessed adequately and discussed with the Scottish electorate. The issue here is that if fracking is going to cause environmental and health damage that is disproportionate to the benefits gained from it, once the fracking has taken place the damage cannot be undone. So best to have an understanding of potential outcomes before the event rather than after.

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Mor...king-1555.aspx

With regard to the opinion poll results referred to in posting #13 and in the context of the Scottish Government listening to Scottish electorate opinions about fracking in Scotland, as far as I am aware there are no live commercial fracking extraction operations in Scotland. Although Ineos have a licence for test drilling in the Central Belt of Scotland, I do not think that they have started test drilling anywhere in Scotland. Instead Ineos managers have been out on the road trying to influence public opinion by giving presentations about fracking in various locations in Scotland, and trying to sell the idea that fracking would give Scotland economic independence from the rest of the UK through cheaper energy. They even had a stand at the last SNP Annual Conference trying to sell the concept of energy and financial independence for Scotland through fracking.

Therefore I find it a bit difficult to understand why an opinion poll asked Scottish voters whether there should be more or less fracking when there is currently no commercial fracking in Scotland. I also find it a bit difficult to understand how the polling company can put the results forward as being representative of the views of the Scottish people when the questions do not reflect the reality on the ground of no current test or operational fracking in Scotland.

There have been other public opinion polls that have shown that of those people who have a preference, more of the Scottish electorate are against fracking than for it.

https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/20...oes-it-matter/

(The results of the Survation fracking poll are almost at the bottom of the results page)

However, for the Scottish Government to treat opinion polls only in a narrow one dimensional way of either one way in favour or the other way against is missing the point. Apart from opinion polls results being influenced by the way that questions are worded, in a democracy politicians should be paying attention to what everybody is saying including minorities. Therefore the Scottish Government decided to listen to both viewpoints and imposed the moratorium to give time for sufficient scientific evidence to be collated so that objective fact based decision making can be undertaken in due course whether or not to allow fracking.

To my mind, this all seems a sound and democratic way of doing business and I would much prefer that the Scottish approach were to be followed in England.

[PetBazaar]

But the choice "About the same as now" is zero so, in fact, LESS people want fracking not more according to your single poll (of how many people?)

Was a standard polling sample of 1053 carried out by Panelbase. Part of a group of questions about energy sources in general and not specifically about fracking. It's probably not strictly true to say that "about the same as now" is zero, given that there's been fracking in the UK as part of the onshore oil industry since at least the 80s if not the 60s. Not for shale gas admittedly, but it's been here nonetheless. That said, my guess is that the vast majority of the respondants probably have no idea how much fracking is carried out today and hence have answered in some unusual ways.

But, "less than now" and "the same as now" is NOT the same as "none" if you're of the opinion that at least some of your current energy is from fracking. And given some of the hysterical news reporting it wouldn't surprise me to hear that folk think the country is dotted with wells.

The official situation in Scotland is that the current Scottish Government is neither for nor against fracking but has introduced a moratorium on fracking operations (but not test drilling) so that the environmental risks associated with fracking can be assessed adequately and discussed with the Scottish electorate. The issue here is that if fracking is going to cause environmental and health damage that is disproportionate to the benefits gained from it, once the fracking has taken place the damage cannot be undone. So best to have an understanding of potential outcomes before the event rather than after.

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Mor...king-1555.aspx

With regard to the opinion poll results referred to in posting #13 and in the context of the Scottish Government listening to Scottish electorate opinions about fracking in Scotland, as far as I am aware there are no live commercial fracking extraction operations in Scotland. Although Ineos have a licence for test drilling in the Central Belt of Scotland, I do not think that they have started test drilling anywhere in Scotland. Instead Ineos managers have been out on the road trying to influence public opinion by giving presentations about fracking in various locations in Scotland, and trying to sell the idea that fracking would give Scotland economic independence from the rest of the UK through cheaper energy. They even had a stand at the last SNP Annual Conference trying to sell the concept of energy and financial independence for Scotland through fracking.

Therefore I find it a bit difficult to understand why an opinion poll asked Scottish voters whether there should be more or less fracking when there is currently no commercial fracking in Scotland. I also find it a bit difficult to understand how the polling company can put the results forward as being representative of the views of the Scottish people when the questions do not reflect the reality on the ground of no current test or operational fracking in Scotland.

There have been other public opinion polls that have shown that of those people who have a preference, more of the Scottish electorate are against fracking than for it.

https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/20...oes-it-matter/

(The results of the Survation fracking poll are almost at the bottom of the results page)

However, for the Scottish Government to treat opinion polls only in a narrow one dimensional way of either one way in favour or the other way against is missing the point. Apart from opinion polls results being influenced by the way that questions are worded, in a democracy politicians should be paying attention to what everybody is saying including minorities. Therefore the Scottish Government decided to listen to both viewpoints and imposed the moratorium to give time for sufficient scientific evidence to be collated so that objective fact based decision making can be undertaken in due course whether or not to allow fracking.

To my mind, this all seems a sound and democratic way of doing business and I would much prefer that the Scottish approach were to be followed in England.

All valid points that you make but my opinion is that the Scottish Government, as it is prone to doing, is waiting for the Scottish elections to get out of the way before making any decisions one way or the other. My gut feeling is that they're pro-fracking but are aware that a large part of their support probably isn't. I can see the moratorium dragging on indefinitely in order to avoid making a decision.

Ineos, as you say, have the licenses for exploration and, as far as I'm aware are not currently making use of them. However, it's worth pointing out that they inherited at least some of those from their acquisition of earlier exploration companies, and in particular Dart Energy. Dart had been (since the late 90s), until it all became a bit politically sensitive, drilling test wells at Airth near Stirling (only a handfull of miles from where I lived until last year). From what I can make out their exploration was reasonably successfull and they had applied for further drilliing licenses before the mood changed.

Locally, our fracking issues are a little different from England. England in the main, as far as I can see, appears to be looking at shale gas. In Scotland we've got shale, but it's more limited in scope, so we appear to be looking more at coal bed methane or coal bed gasification (basically everywhere from about Ayr on the west coast, to Fife on the east coast is one big abandoned coal mine. Unfortunately, particularly for the gasification plans, both of these have also been caught up in the fracking pause.

In fairness, after taking an interest in the workings of Westminster, I'd be inclined to agree that the Holyrood approach seems far preferable. But in all honesty, the idea that the Scottish Government pays any more attention to the population than the Westminster one still remains open to question. And that's coming from someone who thinks that the Scottish Government is actually doing ok for the country, all things considered.

[countryfeedback87]

My MP sent me the minutes from the committee meeting about the fracking under national parks and protected areas. Very interesting! Tories up to their usual with pretty much every other MP requesting a full debate over the issue but obviously denied so the Tories got it fast tracked. If anyone's interested I'll see if I can scan them in (dunno if they're available to view online, they might be)

[westlondoncarparts]

To give some idea of the conundrum facing the English part of the UK, two Government agencies working within England have published review documents into the risks arising from fracking.

Given that both agencies were supposed to be reviewing the same elements of the fracking process, you would have expected them to have come up with similar conclusions. Instead the Environment Agency has concluded that there is medium risk with high impact if things go wrong whilst Public Health England have concluded that there is minimal risk arising from fracking.

Given the significant divergence of conclusions from different parts of the same Westminster Government, one would have thought that the Westminster Government would have engaged significantly with and sought input from the English public on how to move forward.

Instead what we seem to be getting is direct intervention by the Westminster Government into local English planning and appeal procedures. Although we would be judging before the event, there are suspicions that Westminster Government intervention into planning and appeal procedures is intending to fast track approval for fracking irrespective of what local people would like.

Hence my comments about the devolved Governments in the UK seeming to be working in a more democratic way than the centralized Government for England.



1. Environment Agency

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...474_fbb1d4.pdf

The Environment Agency has assessed the probability of environmental / health degredation as either very low, low, medium or high across what it identifies as the nine stages of shale gas fracking.

Within these bands of probability, the Agency has assessed the seriousness of the consequences should something go wrong as either very low, low, medium or high. It also assesses the magnitude of the consequences as either very low, low, medium or high.

Taking an overview of all nine stages together, the Agency assesses fracking to have medium risk of something going wrong with both consequences and magnitude being high should something go wrong.

It assesses medium risk, high severity of consequences and high magnitude of consequences for loss of fracturing fluids, water acquisition, use of proprietary chemicals, leakage and other unintended borehole releases of methane and other gases, onsite treatment of flowback fluids.

It assesses medium risk, medium severity of consequences and medium magnitude of consequences for seismic activity (earth tremors and earthquakes), unintended development of factures beyond intended fracking areas, surface spills of flowback fluids, build up of naturally occurring radioactive material, accumulation of naturally occurring radioactive solids, controlled venting of gases.



2. Public Health England

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...cover_note.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...009_3-7-14.pdf

[olivia8143]

Here's my MPs reply to my email (which is below it). His response is somewhat lacking, to say the least.

Dear Olivia,Thank you for your reply. Thank you also for the link you provided, which I read with interest.I appreciate that you feel very strongly about this issue. As shale gas is a new form of energy, I can understand why many people have concerns. However, as I outlined in my previous email, fracking will be strictly regulated in the same way as the conventional oil and gas industries, and Natural Resources Wales will be monitoring for any potential environmental risks.Thank you again for your email. Please do let me know if I can be of any other assistance.Kind regards,Stephen

From: Olivia Atkinson
Sent: 18 January 2016 16:28
To: CRABB, Stephen
Subject: Re: National parks



Dear Stephen Crabb

Thank you for your reply, what a good job that there's a moratorium on fracking in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland until it can be proven that it is environmentally safe to do so.

It is only in England where the Westminster Government is trying to drive fracking forward with disregard for local opinion.

You would have thought that the Westminster Government would take into account what the devolved administrations are saying about fracking. Instead we appear to be on the verge of totalitarianism where local democracy is OK as long as it agrees with what the Westminster Government wants but can be overridden if it does not give the support that Westminster wants. The legal changes to drilling without permission under people’s land feel a bit like the thin end of a somewhat thick wedge.


You might be interested in seeing the effects of fracking in the USA this week
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...uake-1.3400605
Yours sincerely,



O. Atkinson

[sidthelamp]

just towing the unseen line